Nurse Jackie: My Ring-a-Ling

Jackie the good nurse and mother wins out. She snatches a dead patient’s personal effects, including an iPhone with angry texts from the patient’s abandoned girlfriend and a bunch of un-mailed bills and letters. She uses the phone to inform the poor girl of the guy’s passing, and puts some of her own stamps on the mail and drops it in the box. Then she dances home, practicing the moves she’s learning in the Mommy-and-me tap class she’s taking with Grace. Elaborate choreography, we’re not so subtly reminded, is her strongest talent. So how does she sail through this week’s explosive interpersonal conflicts? Read on!

Who: Dr. O’HaraJackie’s problem: She’s still pissed that O’Hara told her sister about Jackie’s double life. O’Hara makes a peace offering of chocolate, fashion magazines, and possibly a pack of cigarettes. The solution: More effective fence-mending comes in the form of metal-cutting pliers: No amount of tugging and lubricating soap allows Jackie to remove the wedding ring stuck on her finger (hello, Lady Macbeth!), so O’Hara attempts to destroy the damn thing. Jackie needs to make nice with her BFF, and voilà, she’s dealt a conundrum that O’Hara’s able to fix.Ridiculousness: High. Did she really need to go to such extremes to hide the ring? At least it preserves her relationship with O’Hara.

Who: Dr. CooperJackie’s problem: Coop’s dead set on bringing Jackie’s organ-donor-card forgery to justice — especially since she’s implicated him by lying and saying he signed off on it. As he loudly reminds Jackie, the illegal harvesting of organs amounts to murder, and he isn’t beyond turning on her so intensely it’ll make her head spin. Or so he says: The most menacing thing he’s capable of is grabbing her boob in his signature involuntary way.The solution: Jackie defuses the situation in a decidedly un-signature way: She kisses him. Next thing we know, he’s abetting her most elaborate lie. Jackie has opted to smash her ring, to provide an excuse for her husband as to why she’s not wearing it, by taking a sledgehammer to her hand. Coop swoops in and tends to her injury.Ridiculousness: High. It’s hard to decide what’s nuttier: that she’d lay a wet one on Cooper, or that she’d smash her hand to to keep a tenuous, probably unnecessary secret.

Who: EddieJackie’s problem: Eddie’s still on about going public with their relationship. She’s not about to do that, but she’s not about to leave him, either. (Is it her addiction to pills, or her addiction to him?)The solution: Jackie’s saved by the bell. Without warning, construction guys appear at the pharmacy to replace Eddie with robots.Ridiculousness: Low. The end of Eddie was inevitable, and Jackie strung him along as anyone likely would have.

Who: ZooeyJackie’s problem: Zooey busts in on a private Jackie moment again. This time, Jackie can’t just fake the sniffles: She’s entwined in her last roll around with Eddie. Solution: Zooey’s a Goody Two-shoes who wants do to everything by the book, but she’s also convinced that Jackie is “an angel” and a model nurse. She’ll keep Jackie’s secret. Ridiculousness: Low. Zooey wouldn’t tattle, and Jackie, who knows it, doesn’t even have to manipulate her.